The Vast Left-Wing Russia Conspiracy Exposed

The Democrats and their accomplices in the Republican Party have peddled the vast left-wing conspiracy that the president and Vladimir Putin “colluded” with one another in the months leading up to Election Day since late last summer.

Though I have already spilled exponentially more ink on this topic than it deserves, a few more syllables can’t hurt.

First, observers should note that none of these conspiracy theorists have ever spelled out what they think occurred between Trump and Putin. They throw around the term “collusion” without ever specifying any other details. There’s a good reason for this:

They know that if they actually specified what they are thinking—or, more precisely, what they want for Americans to think—they would be exposed for the shameless, deceitful partisan hacks they are.

After all, the Democrats and the GOP NeverTrumpers expect for the rest of us to believe that, together, Trump and Putin “colluded” to enable the former―a man ridiculed and mocked by his enemies as a buffoon and clown right up until election night―to prevail over Hillary Clinton in a decisive Electoral College win.

Bill Clinton with Putin

Julian Assange insists that there was no “hacking” of DNC emails, that a Democratic Party insider (undoubtedly a discontented Bernie Sanders supporter) leaked them. Nevertheless, even assuming, for argument’s sake, that Russians are guilty on this score, the Russophobic war mongers in the Democrat and Republican parties want for us to think that by way of arranging for Wikileaks to make public their contents, Putin enabled Trump to win 30 of 50 states and more than 2,600 of America’s 3,100 counties—including 220 or so counties that voted for Obama in 2012.

If only Putin hadn’t intervened, Clinton would be president right now and Trump would have lost by the 12 points or so that all of the “experts,” as recently as days before Election Day, assured us would be the outcome.

The vast left-wing conspiracists also want for us to overlook that if their insinuations are correct, this convicts Barack Obama and his party of gross incompetence. Given their expressions of certitude until the 11th hour that Clinton would clean Trump’s clock, they clearly had no clue that a hostile foreign power was “undermining” the integrity of our electoral process right under their collective nose.

How, on their watch, was Putin able to sabotage their electoral prospects and subvert the votes of the nearly 60 million or so Deplorables who, according to the (il)logic of the conspiracy theory, would otherwise have voted for Clinton?

Yet, somehow, Putin and the buffoon “colluded” so as to make all of this happen.

Second, even the most toxic among Trump’s nemeses, like the contemptible Maxine Waters, acknowledges that, to date, there is zero evidence of any “collusion” between the President and Putin.

Third, had there been any evidence, can anyone doubt that it would have been disclosed long ago, and well before the election? The FBI had been investigating (whether legally or not is yet to be determined) possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russia since last July. Yet, to repeat, nothing has been found.

Fourth, in 2012, when Mitt Romney (wrongly, in my judgment) claimed that Russia was the largest “geopolitical threat” facing the United States, Obama and his fellow partisans made sport of him. During one of their debates, Obama accused Romney of endorsing a “Cold War” foreign policy vision.

Obama must have really been out to lunch if, within just a few short years, Russia has managed to sabotage an American election!

And this brings us to our final point: Much more plausible than the conspiracy that Putin “colluded” with Trump is the theory that Putin and Obama had been colluding for years.

Consider:

1) While serving as Obama’s Secretary of State in 2010, Hillary Clinton, in an effort to hit Obama’s “reset” button vis-à-vis relations with Russia, arranged for Russia to purchase 20 percent of America’s uranium.

2) Shortly before he was reelected, Obama was overheard on an open mic talking to the outgoing Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev. He asked Medvedev to request of his successor that Putin “give him space” until after the election. In his second term, Obama assured his counterpart, he would have “more flexibility.” “On all of these issues,” Obama remarked, “but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.”

“This is my last election,” Obama continued. “After my election I have more flexibility.”

“Would you like fries with that? Because I can be more flexible after the election.”

Medvedev assured Obama that he would get the message to “Vladimir,” and he assured him that he understood his situation.

3) If, as the Democrats assure us, Putin gained access to DNC emails that were damning enough to cost them the election, then Putin would have had every reason to want them to remain in power! This veteran KGB agent would have had the Democrats right where he wanted them. They would have been ripe for blackmail and it would have been utterly irrational for Putin to have squandered all of this leverage over his enemies.

4) Putin would have had good reason to not want Trump to be president. After all, Trump was tirelessly depicted as a wildcard, a cowboy, John Wayne come alive again. With the Clintons and Obama, Putin knew where he stood. He knew, given Obama’s refusal to back up his “red line” tough talk to Bashar Assad, that, if nothing else, things would remain as they were.

Trump, though, was the Devil that neither Putin nor anyone else knew.

Sure enough, within less than 100 days into his presidency, Trump did what Obama threatened to do but never did: Against Putin’s wishes, he bombed Syria. In front of the world, Trump, in effect, punked Putin.

That no small number of his supporters (like yours truly) objected to this course of action is neither here nor there.

Perhaps Obama and Putin are colluding with one another even now so as to make it appear that it is Trump who colluded with Putin. Perhaps both have an interest in delegitimizing the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

For the record, this conspiracy that I’ve presented I just made up as I was typing. I do not believe that Obama and Putin have been in cahoots to sabotage Trump.

But this conspiracy is a whole lot more credible than Russian conspiracy the Democrats are now trying to push.

Jack Kerwick earned his doctorate degree in philosophy from Temple University. His areas of specialization are ethics and political philosophy, with a particular interest in classical conservatism. His work has appeared in both scholarly journals and popular publications, and he recently authored, The American Offensive: Dispatches from the Front. Kerwick has been teaching philosophy for nearly 17 years at a variety of institutions, from Baylor to Temple, Penn State University, the College of New Jersey and elsewhere. His next book, Misguided Guardians: The Conservative Case Against Neoconservatism is pending publication. He is currently an instructor of philosophy at Rowan College at Burlington County.